Family Banquet (2)

Behind the University of Tokyo, old-fashioned Japanese houses lined both sides of the road. An old street stall cart stood by the roadside, a two-wheeled wooden box cart known in Japan as a "ramen yatai." Once its rain shelter was unfolded, it could fit two or three stools. Customers sat on wooden stools to eat their ramen while the ramen master simmered broth and cooked noodles inside the cart.

Japanese ramen was a soup noodle dish originating from China, made with alkaline noodles. Though it had only formally appeared a century ago, it had developed soup bases distinguished by soy sauce, salt, miso, pork bone broth, and more.

A customer in a suit and a rose-colored bow tie arrived through the rain carrying a silver briefcase, not long before the stall was due to close.

Hilbert Jean Angers sat beside the yatai cart, setting his umbrella and heavy briefcase aside. "Soy sauce ramen, plus an extra serving of chashu and two braised eggs. Make it quick."

Heavy rain crackled against the canopy.

The owner showed little reaction, merely pulling the rain cover down a little farther in distaste, as though being seen with this customer would be deeply embarrassing.

"I know you still have more than an hour before closing." Angers looked up and took a bottle of cheap sake, as naturally as if he were opening his own refrigerator for an ice-cold beer.

In truth, he had only visited this stall once before. He was hardly a regular.

The ramen master gave him an indifferent glance, dipped his chopsticks in the noodle broth, and wrote on the chopping board: "Angers and dogs are not allowed in."

Angers did not move in the slightest. He merely raised an eyebrow and met his gaze.

"You already came looking for me last time. I remember making my refusal perfectly clear. If you keep pestering me, don't tell me you're having ramen withdrawal." Uesugi Etsu finally lost his composure, fuming. "Starting tonight, ramen costs money! Eight hundred yen a bowl! An extra hundred for one braised egg, two hundred for an extra serving of chashu!"

Angers began pouring himself a drink. "You charge quite a lot. I remember miso ramen with butter in Sapporo cost thirty-two yen... unfortunately, I had already left Japan by then. In Kagoshima, tonkotsu pork ramen with black pork chashu and sardine broth cost just thirty-nine yen, chashu included."

"That was the price decades ago! Back then, saury rice balls cost six yen and thirty-five sen. Why don't you go find yourself some rice balls instead?"

"You really are... knowing you was my bad luck. I genuinely want to switch careers now just to avoid you. Even becoming a host in my twilight years would be better than this." Uesugi Etsu's shoulders slumped as he babbled nonsense.

"No problem, but you will have to put some effort into it. Among Japanese restaurants, only Ishikawa in Tokyo and Koan in Kanagawa Prefecture are probably worthy of my patronage." Angers placed a stack of ten-thousand-yen bills on the chopping board. "One million yen. Keep the change. I'll come again in the future, so consider it advance payment... When you become a host, I'll dance backup for you, shouting, 'Go, Uesugi!' while I dance. Then we'll debut as an elderly idol group and let the Snake-Branch Eight Families witness the unparalleled elegance of their former Shadow Emperor and the headmaster of the headquarters before their destruction."

Uesugi Etsu: "..."

He slumped against the cart, his mouth opening and closing like a dying salted fish.

When a shameless person encountered someone even more shameless, there was truly nothing he could do.

Angers swirled the cheap sake in a small cup. "Enough nonsense. Your Tokyo is in turmoil now. The Holy Remains have revived, and you have a duty to defend this land. Beasts are running rampant in Tokyo, yet you, a sword-wielder, are unwilling even to be a hands-off boss."

"You're still talking nonsense."

Uesugi Etsu took the money with ill grace. "My Tokyo? Bullshit. What you said sounds like a goddess about to give birth gazing affectionately at some simp who has never even touched her hand and telling him, 'You need to take responsibility for your child'... What does that have to do with me? I don't even buy Japanese senior health supplements anymore."

If the Snake-Branch Eight Families vanished, he would only applaud.

"You haven't fallen completely behind the times, old man." Angers pointed at the fourteen-inch color TV above the soup pot and the DVD of a seductively posed actress beside it. "The disc is a little old. I told you last time, but you still haven't changed it. Next time I come, I'll bring you something new."

"Look where I set up my stall. University of Tokyo students come up with something fresh every month. I have more than discs to relieve my boredom." Uesugi Etsu looked rather pleased with himself.

Angers watched him and took a sip of sake. "So besides the cheap rent, you set up your stall here to hear young people gossip more easily. But you really are getting a little old."

If anyone else had said that, Uesugi Etsu would probably have nodded cheerfully. Hearing it from Angers, though, displeased him. "Look in a mirror, will you? I'm still a tender young man compared to you."

"I mean your heart has grown old." Angers's words were blunt and cold.

Uesugi Etsu stiffened for a moment. He reached up and pulled the middle section of the rain cover inward, pressing it against the side panel. "Look up. Look at my ramen shop banner. I'm already locked inside that banner by my present happiness. Those imprisoned by contentment are the hardest to break free."

The cloth read "Master Etsu's Ramen." It had been his sign on this street for decades. New customers came and old customers left, but his sign remained just those simple words.

"Happiness? Are you really happy because of this?" Angers asked incredulously. "I won't comment on you using a rain cover as a banner, but someone who once entered and left palaces has now become a 'friend of the neighborhood.' Deceiving yourself is not a good thing."

Uesugi Etsu neither agreed nor disagreed. "You must have another purpose in coming to see me. Hurry up, I'm busy too. After you finish talking, I still need to push the cart home... I'm truly tired of it. Someone who cannot find an enemy... how could he have any reason to draw his sword? You've knocked on the wrong door."

"Wait, let me find a good bottle first... Why are they all the same brand?"

While looking for alcohol, Angers glanced at the Madonna statue Uesugi Etsu kept behind the sake. He rose and poured a cup for himself and Uesugi Etsu. "What days do you go to church? Pray for me one day."

It was a small Madonna statue dressed in a red kimono, praying devoutly for children. Her facial features were typically Asian, with a cheap sunburst behind her. Her pose and expression might have drawn inspiration from the Italian missionary's Thumb Mary and Fujian's White Porcelain Guanyin Statue in China.

"Get on with it! The important part." Impatiently, Uesugi Etsu set the ramen before Angers.

Angers tried to keep it brief. "I came to ask about God's Hatching Ground... the Snake-Branch Eight Families... geological agencies... As the Shadow Emperor, I thought you would surely know something confidential."

He laid out everything he knew so far. In this city, there were few people he trusted, and the man before him was undoubtedly one of them.

Without much hesitation, Uesugi Etsu explained the rough drilling diagram he knew of regarding the Divine-era Ruins. He dipped his chopsticks in noodle broth and sketched as he spoke.

"If you want to find it, you'd better hurry. God is absolutely not like the Dragon Kings you once slaughtered. Once completed, God will be something on the level of the Black King. We call it God because it represents despair. If it is completed, I can't imagine whether there will still be any way in this world to kill it."

Uesugi Etsu gazed at the torrential rain outside. "To be honest, I've already booked a ticket to Paris. That is the ultimate monster of all monsters. I hope you can win, but I don't think the odds of success are very high."

Amid the rain and wind, a clear laugh suddenly rang out, followed by the soft cry of a kitten.

"Who?"

Uesugi Etsu abruptly looked up. Angers was still eating his ramen at an unhurried pace, even picking up and eating a braised egg.

It seemed that a child in a bow tie had just been sitting on the other bench of the wooden cart with a cat in his arms, resting and sheltering from the rain... right beside Angers. Hearing their discussion of the White King, the child had been unable to stop himself from snickering.